What happened to march like last year? Ah well, I won't make it to comic con this year either, but it was nice to see you last year. Maybe I will just run into you in NH while I satisfy my bueno craving

I get distracted very easily these days, as I have become very old. (33 next month. Practically dust.) When I was pumping out 12 comics a week for syndication & my website at the same time, I found that writing things longhand with a pen made ALL the difference as far as staying on task. And not checking IM. Or email. Or the news. ET CETERA.

Here's the rough sketch to a popular strip I did a couple months back about how small we are relative to the universe. Don't try to read it, it's just an example of a rough. I used to think roughs and warm-ups were a waste of time, but they're pretty useful for making sure everything you sit down to do has a POINT as opposed to just being pretty. Also they're an excuse to buy pens.

(Why legal pads? The office supply world is biased against lefties.)

I used to do all my strip writing on my phone in the form of emails home while walking. Before that i used to think them up commuting to work and memorize them until I got home. Nowadays, I let my mind wander while working in the office and run over to a pad and draw a grid and stick figures the moment something clicks. I'm sure I'll move onto something else eventually.

Does anyone study meditation? I wonder sometimes if that's what comic strip writing is all about. Absorb what you can during your day and find a way to let your mind wander so your subconscious can do all the work. Struggling is for the editing process.

I'm treating myself to a fresh pad and some Kirby tonight:

I hope to either invent a Flux Capacitor or own a hot dog cart when comics are through with me.

Wow, reading all that stuff about Eastworks made me think that maybe this was the prologue to some elaborate online drama spread over various message boards, blogs and twitter feeds whereby one night R. Stevens descends the stairs in Eastworks, deeper than he's ever gone before, deeper than any mortal ever should go... and never comes back. It just seemed so much like you were setting the scene.

Now that's looking less likely, but what you're doing instead is just as good. So thanks for doing this and keep up the quality of work to which we have become accustomed. I recently discovered a Diesel Sweeties sticker (I am ten ninjas) that I thought I lost years ago. I can't decide what to do with it though, any ideas?

Not bad so far! I'm not yet convinced it's worth the premium price (around 4x the cost-per-dose of the bitartrate), but dreams have been more interesting / easier to remember since I've started. The only way to be sure? More testing!

Hey! Insane day today. Moved a lot of mail, got a whole case of new shirts in that sucked up some hours, went a little too crazy drawing pixel bacon. Hopefully I can be a little more thoughtful tomorrow.

Is Ferocious J. still 'round these parts? It was his birthday so I combined two of his favorite things in that strip in his honor.

No questions here; am more or less braindead this week. Just want to thank you for swinging by, rstevens, and let you know that if you find yourself heading towards Worcester/elsewhere in Central MA I'd be honored to buy you a beer. I'll even hold the roofies, at least for the first round.

Combatcow enaskens:If you work at eastworks, why is it that you don't utilize the Topatoco storefront when selling/shipping your wares? Is it not cost effective for you

If you've ever worked for yourself, you'd know the answer to that!

Topatoco is a good bunch of folks, but I'm not ready to give up the ability to do everything and personally take care of my own readers like a crazy person. When you're your own boss you can be as flexible as the customer is polite.

I was born in 1977 and like to tell people that I grew up alongside computers. They were rare and expensive and everything you got them to do was amazing. Same goes for copiers, printers and other paper-modifying devices. This has given me a fetish for office machinery that far outstrips Warren's readers' for women in leather. I think that's why I studied graphic design in college- a desire to learn how to make machines do beautiful and functional things.

(It also explains why I have about 7 working computers and 6-10 printers at any given time)

My Christmas gift to me this year is a Craft ROBO Pro. Laser printing is passé. Letterpress is a little beyond my technical ability to do in house. Any jerk can print in color nowadays. 2010 is all about cutting and shaping.

I worked in a sign shop in college. Cut tons of sticky vinyl, lettered cars, built signs. Fun stuff. Never could afford a plotter back then, nor did they cut paper as well as stickers.

How many of you have read Cory Doctorow's Makers? The first chunk where he describes the "New Work Movement" turned on every synapse in my brain and makes me want to turn my studio into a micro-manufacturing laboratory.

hey.. can you tell my why my cat decided right NOW, while I've got the haus all sealed up because it's fucking cold.. to go into his litter box and drop a bomb? I mean what the fuck. I even turned the heater on for the little fucker.